Logarithmic PN number density profiles for the M 87 halo (red triangles) and the IC PNs (blue diamonds), corrected for incompleteness. The error bars include counting statistics and completeness correction. The halo PN profile compares well with the surface brightness profile from Kormendy et al. (2009, plus signs). The continuous black line shows their Sersic fit with n = 11.8. The ICPN number density decreases towards larger radii as I_ICL ∝ R^γ with γ in the range [−0.34; −0.04 ] (full and dashed-dotted blue lines). Black squares show the combined halo and IC PN number density profile, which is well modelled by the two-component photometric model (dot-dashed black line, see Sect. 5).